Macroeconomic Conditionality in Cohesion Policy: Added Value or Unnecessary Burden? European Policy Brief No. 13, November 2012

Macroeconomic conditionality has become one of the major elements in discussions on the future of EU cohesion policy. Such conditional-ity would make the cohesion budget dependent on EU economic governance rules. This would have advantages for economic governance and, to a lesser extent, the efficiency of cohesion policy and the EU’s Multiannual Financial Framework negotiations. Yet, conditionality also risks entailing serious disadvantages for the end beneficiaries and cohesion policy itself. If the EU decides to put macroeconomic conditionality in place, it needs to reconsider the design and agree on an ample cohesion budget.

TRAC: a market-based tax on capital flight as an alternative to Grexit. CEPS Commentary, 7 May 2015

In this CEPS Commentary, Daniel Gros turns his attention to the main outstanding problem facing Greece today, namely capital flight. Fearful that the country will leave the euro, depositors are withdrawing cash from their bank accounts – thereby making this event more likely. He outlines a proposal in which outgoing payments from Greek banks in the form of cash or via the TARGET system would be limited to the amount of incoming payments, i.e. revenues from exports or tourism, via an auction system. Greece could remain formally a member of the euro area, but the price for cash withdrawals would encourage depositors to wait and stimulate exports.